


Soul Song

by ValmureEld



Series: Vita est in Sanguinem [3]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grieving, Heartbeats, Hurt/Comfort, Platonic Relationships, back from the dead trope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-21 00:38:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14273109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ValmureEld/pseuds/ValmureEld
Summary: After seeing him bleed out, after lamenting him for five years, Dandelion just can't accept that the man in front of him with no memories and little sympathy is really his friend back from the dead. The possibilities are too painful.But what if he's wrong?





	Soul Song

**Author's Note:**

> My wonderful friend BlueNeutrino is writing a delightful series about all the first times Geralt's friends, and some enemies, come in contact with his unique heart. I, of course, then decided to write an angsty complimentary series of the first time each of these people interact with his heart after his resurrection. 
> 
> This fic, therefore, is linked with her "Harmonic" in the "Heart of a Witcher" series.

It’s evening, they’re sitting in Shani’s apartment, alone, and the bard won’t stop looking at him like he’s a ghost. Geralt is getting uncomfortable. 

“What?” he snaps, his voice betraying more than he’d wanted it to. “You keep looking at me like--”

“Like you’re back from the dead?” Dandelion asks, but the overly cheerful tone is gone. His expression is uncertain, even a little angry, hiding something else much deeper and more desperate, and Geralt doesn’t like it. "Well sorry, but I’m starting to wonder. Are you even Geralt?”

Geralt scowls at the bard and grinds his teeth, looking away. He's starting to think all that drinking was a bad idea. They're both still somewhat drunk, but the levity of the room has gone and the lingering intoxication only seems to be winding a precarious situation tighter.

“I don’t remember anything. All I know is my name," he says tersely. "I am Geralt. Of Rivia. Made that up apparently, since I don’t think I ever lived there.”

“No,” Dandelion says, his expression hard. “But you died there.”

“What do you want out of me?” Geralt snaps, feeling frustrated and exposed. “Maybe I did. Maybe I’m not your friend after all. I told you, I. Don’t. Know. Sorry to disappoint.”

Pain chased quickly by anger flits across the bard’s face and he presses his lips together in a hard line. “I watched my best friend bleed out and die," he says harshly. "And now you’re walking around with his skin, and you're mocking me. Even I can't imagine a complete stranger being that cruel, let alone the real Geralt." 

“I told you, _I am Geralt_ ,” he growls, slamming his fist against the table so hard the empty tankards rattle. All he has is that name and as Dandelion keeps picking away at that one thread of stability Geralt feels everything he doesn’t understand and everything that’s scaring him bristle all at once. The poet is _still_ staring at him like he's looking for someone who might not be there. “Quit looking at me like I killed the man you’re mourning. Why can’t you just accept I'm really alive?”

“Because if I accept it and I’m wrong I can’t lose you again!” Dandelion snaps back, and this time his voice breaks. He blinks quickly, looking away, his throat bobbing with a difficult swallow. “I can’t…” he sobs once and drops his head into his hand, his jaw clenching, and all the pretentiousness of the poet is gone and Geralt feels a stab of guilt. Slowly, he unclenches his fist and leans forward. 

“Dandelion I…” he hesitates, reaching out and awkwardly resting his hand on the bard’s shoulder. The gesture feels familiar and foreign at the same time, and he clears his throat, mentally squirming under the odd clash.

“I’m sorry,” he says at last. “I’m sorry I don’t remember...I wish I did. I don’t like feeling cut loose like this. But I can’t help it.” He pauses, waiting as Dandelion sniffs and wipes at his eyes, picking his head up. He doesn’t look at Geralt, his dark eyes staring with such a look of defeat and grief that Geralt regrets being harsh with him.

“Doesn’t mean I won’t remember,” he adds quietly, and Dandelion looks at him. Geralt has to pull his hand and his gaze away, working his jaw and avoiding Dandelion’s expression. “I just don’t yet.”

And he doesn’t. Not for a long while. But the bard sticks around and more things start to feel familiar. He can still feel how difficult it is for Dandelion to be near him like this. Catches the tense expression, the hesitance, the fear, the _longing_ , and it’s starting to scare Geralt because if they really were that close once how is he ever to find all those threads again and get back? He doesn’t admit it to himself often, but he thinks having a friend that’s as close as Dandelion seems to have been with this past Geralt could be something he’d really like. Maybe even need.

It’s over a pint of mead one evening that something finally gives in the rotting floor of Geralt’s amnesia and he feels an actual drop in his stomach. He blinks, a chill going across his back despite the hearty fire and his head snaps up, looking at Dandelion.

“Say that again,” he says, startling the bard with the intensity of the request. “Please,” Geralt amends, trying to convey his apology in his tone. “Just, please. Say that again.”

Dandelion looks bewildered. “Harp strings?” he asks, and Geralt blinks.

“Like harp strings being struck by a hammer,” he murmurs, and Dandelion suddenly goes very white. Geralt looks up from the broken memory and studies the bard’s face, feeling suddenly very strange indeed. He’s on the edge of remembering something, and by the look on Dandelion’s face it’s more than a casual memory. The bard is sitting very still, his jaw working, and for once he is silent.

“My heart,” Geralt says at last, an absent hand touching his breastbone. “You...you described my heart like harp strings being struck by a hammer. We had to share a bed and you had your head on my chest…”

He has to stop, drop his gaze, not because he doesn’t remember but because he does. He’s flooded with amputated emotions, knowing they’re real, knowing the memory is true, but unable to connect it with what and who he is now. He realizes then that while everything else that falls out of Dandelion’s mouth is embellished, his insistence on their friendship isn't.

Not even a little. They really had been that close. Geralt looks up at the bard and he swallows, his brow furrowing. “Dandelion, I’m sorry I can’t remember more--”

Dandelion holds his hand up to stop him, shaking his head. “I can’t do this anymore, Geralt,” he says, that sharp pain back in his eyes. “I can’t I’m sorry. I have to know. You keep saying things that make me hope, I can’t mourn you anymore.”

“Then don’t,” Geralt says helplessly. “I’m right here.”

“All of you?”

“I don’t know,” he confesses, weariness slumping his shoulders. “You’re still afraid to really believe I’m back, aren’t you?”

“Geralt,” Dandelion says, and Geralt has to meet his eyes. The bard’s expression is agonized, his eyes searching Geralt’s face like he’s looking again for proof. “You have to understand. I watched the light--” he stops, swallows, clenches his hand into a fist. “I saw you die,” he whispers, and his voice is strained. “I could sense the moment your heart--the moment your heart stopped,” he finishes in a strangled whisper.

The witcher feels the urge to comfort the bard, to convince him that he needs to let go of that image and accept the miracle, but how can he when he doesn’t know what to make of it himself? How can he when he’s still doubting who exactly he really is? He doesn’t even remember dying.

“Tell me,” he says finally, unsure why this seems like the solution when he can’t find any logic in it. Maybe Dandelion’s poetic habits have infected him, but if he really did come back from the dead maybe such a fanciful test would actually prove it, so he presses on. He gestures at his chest. “Tell me if it sounds the same. Maybe you’re right, maybe your friend is dead.” He feels a wave of melancholy at that admission, and he dearly hopes that’s not the case. “But you told him...told me once that my heart is unique. Impossible to replicate. If it sounds the same, maybe the man you remember is still in here somewhere.”

Dandelion blinks, clearly stunned. “You’d...you’ll let me do that?” he asks, and when Geralt nods he can see the conflict in the bard’s expression.

He knows that same conflict because suddenly his heart is beating harder, afraid to have Dandelion tell him that something has changed. Certain as he feels about himself he suddenly fears being told he’s an imposter.

He gives himself a mental shake and forces his heart to calm. _You’re being idiotic_ , he tells himself. _A heartbeat can’t identify a soul_.

He’s not sure he’s convinced of that, either. He’s tired of being unsure and Dandelion is still looking at him with an expression of fearful longing.

“Come on, do you need a written invitation?” he says gruffly, and Dandelion cracks a broken smile at that and gets up.

Geralt looks away as the Bard approaches, feeling suddenly self-conscious. He stares into the fire, but when Dandelion kneels and nothing happens for a long moment, Geralt has to look back and is hooked by the intensity of Dandelion’s expression. He can’t look away now, and so sees as Dandelion reaches out a hand and hesitates only a moment longer before resting it against Geralt’s chest with such a gentle reverence Geralt holds his breath.

Several long moments pass, but Dandelion doesn’t move, his eyes twitching shut and squeezing closed even tighter as one….two...three...four full heartbeats pass.

“Four four time,” Dandelion murmurs, and then, he takes a deep breath, and he leans in.

His head is warm against Geralt’s breast, and even though the position is a little awkward Geralt doesn't dare move. The pause before the next heartbeat lasts far longer than it should, but when it finally comes he feels the poet stiffen. A hand, now trembling, comes up to rest next to Dandelion’s face and the poet holds his breath, his expression tense.

_Th-thud._

A shuddering breath pushes against Geralt’s chest.

_Th-thud._

The trembling hand fists in Geralt’s shirt.

_Th-thud._

Dandelion is weeping, and Geralt doesn’t know what to do. He’s still lost--unsure if Dandelion is weeping because hope is lost or because he finally knows that Geralt has been telling the truth all this time. He feels self-conscious, wondering if he’d ever known how to comfort Dandelion better than he does right then.

“Beautiful,” Dandelion whispers, pulling away at last and yet keeping his hand over the precious organ. “Even after being pierced...absolutely melodic.”

His eyes are red but that agony is gone, replaced instead with something like hope. “Oh Geralt, _Geralt_ , my friend…” he embraces Geralt tightly, and Geralt finally remembers to breathe properly, taking in a startled breath as he returns the hug.

“I take it I’m really back.”

Dandelion only squeezes harder.


End file.
